Women’s preconception health in England: a report card based on cross-sectional analysis of national maternity services data 2018/19
Women’s preconception health in England: a report card based on cross-sectional analysis of national maternity services data 2018/19
Objective: to present the first national-level report card on the state of women’s preconception health in England.
Design: cross-sectional population-based study.
Setting: maternity services, England.
Population: all pregnant women in England with a first antenatal (booking) appointment recorded in the national Maternity Services Dataset (MSDS) from April 2018 to March 2019 (N=652,880).
Methods: we analysed the prevalence of 32 preconception indicator measures in the overall population and across sociodemographic subgroups. Ten of these indicators were prioritised for ongoing surveillance based on modifiability, prevalence, data quality and ranking by multidisciplinary UK experts.
Results: the three most prevalent indicators were: proportion of the 22.9% of women who smoked one year before pregnancy who did not quit smoking before pregnancy (85.0%), not taken folic acid supplementation before pregnancy (72.7%), and previous pregnancy loss (38.9%). Inequalities were observed by age, ethnicity and area-based deprivation level. The 10 indicators prioritised were: not taking folic acid supplementation before pregnancy, obesity, complex social factors, living in a most deprived area, smoking around the time of conception, overweight, pre-existing mental health condition, pre-existing physical health condition, previous pregnancy loss and previous obstetric complication.
Conclusions: our findings suggest important opportunities to improve the state of preconception health and reduce sociodemographic inequalities for women in England. In addition to MSDS data, other national data sources that record further and possibly better-quality indicators could be explored and linked to build a comprehensive surveillance infrastructure.
Schoenaker, Danielle
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Stephenson, Judith
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Smith, Helen
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Thurland, Kate
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Duncan, Helen
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Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Barker, Mary
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Singh, Claire
2a95474f-ef83-4900-9e87-5b1bbbb32dc3
Alwan, Nisreen
0d37b320-f325-4ed3-ba51-0fe2866d5382
Schoenaker, Danielle
84b96b87-4070-45a5-9777-5a1e4e45e818
Stephenson, Judith
b115169f-d010-4c24-8654-222613c3ed5c
Smith, Helen
d90cada4-0e14-4c80-8f34-7d01ca49fb17
Thurland, Kate
c588c7ae-28b7-49a9-a372-3598a1e4250c
Duncan, Helen
f9117d83-10bf-487c-b953-e3a8f21f7417
Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Barker, Mary
374310ad-d308-44af-b6da-515bf5d2d6d2
Singh, Claire
2a95474f-ef83-4900-9e87-5b1bbbb32dc3
Alwan, Nisreen
0d37b320-f325-4ed3-ba51-0fe2866d5382
Schoenaker, Danielle, Stephenson, Judith, Smith, Helen, Thurland, Kate, Duncan, Helen, Godfrey, Keith, Barker, Mary, Singh, Claire and Alwan, Nisreen
(2023)
Women’s preconception health in England: a report card based on cross-sectional analysis of national maternity services data 2018/19.
BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.
(doi:10.1111/1471-0528.17436).
Abstract
Objective: to present the first national-level report card on the state of women’s preconception health in England.
Design: cross-sectional population-based study.
Setting: maternity services, England.
Population: all pregnant women in England with a first antenatal (booking) appointment recorded in the national Maternity Services Dataset (MSDS) from April 2018 to March 2019 (N=652,880).
Methods: we analysed the prevalence of 32 preconception indicator measures in the overall population and across sociodemographic subgroups. Ten of these indicators were prioritised for ongoing surveillance based on modifiability, prevalence, data quality and ranking by multidisciplinary UK experts.
Results: the three most prevalent indicators were: proportion of the 22.9% of women who smoked one year before pregnancy who did not quit smoking before pregnancy (85.0%), not taken folic acid supplementation before pregnancy (72.7%), and previous pregnancy loss (38.9%). Inequalities were observed by age, ethnicity and area-based deprivation level. The 10 indicators prioritised were: not taking folic acid supplementation before pregnancy, obesity, complex social factors, living in a most deprived area, smoking around the time of conception, overweight, pre-existing mental health condition, pre-existing physical health condition, previous pregnancy loss and previous obstetric complication.
Conclusions: our findings suggest important opportunities to improve the state of preconception health and reduce sociodemographic inequalities for women in England. In addition to MSDS data, other national data sources that record further and possibly better-quality indicators could be explored and linked to build a comprehensive surveillance infrastructure.
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Womens preconception health in England_R1
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 29 November 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 21 February 2023
Additional Information:
NIHR & MRC:
For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 473223
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/473223
ISSN: 1470-0328
PURE UUID: b0f4c602-777a-42ae-98c6-cd871c86c5f7
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Date deposited: 12 Jan 2023 18:05
Last modified: 09 Mar 2023 03:00
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Contributors
Author:
Judith Stephenson
Author:
Helen Smith
Author:
Kate Thurland
Author:
Helen Duncan
Author:
Claire Singh
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